Released today: Crædl

Today is the big release day for Crædl, the Collaborative Research Administration Environment and Data Library. It is a tool designed to work alongside researchers in their labs to simplify data management. It assists researchers in sharing work with collaborators and discovering work made available within the larger research community.

The first Crædl (hemi.craedl.org) belongs to the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute (HEMI), which funded its development. It was inspired by the difficulties HEMI researchers were having with collaboration and data sharing, especially the sharing of large (think terabytes) files. Crædl provides a framework for managing data that automates the process of attaching metadata (the information describing the data), which is essential for enabling data search and discovery. Finally, Crædl helps research groups manage their projects and their researchers (HEMI is a rather large institute) to improve research outcomes.

If you’re interested in learning more about Crædl and its features, head over to craedl.org. If you’re interested in trying out Crædl in your own research group, send an email to info@craedl.org describing your group. We’re not currently open to new research groups, but we are working towards expanding our reach in the future.

I’ve personally lead the Crædl project from its inception about a year ago, and I’m excited to release it into the wild. I know it currently provides some valuable tools to researchers, but it’s still early days. I have many big ideas for features yet to come, so keep an eye out for more updates.